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During the Final Fantasy 14 Media Tour, I had the pleasure of an exclusive sit-down with Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida. As a Warrior of Light since the days of 1.0, it was very exciting to get hands-on with one of FF14’s expansions ahead of launch, for the very first time. Throughout the day I took part in dungeons and hunts with other members of the MMO’s community, as well as fellow games journalists. During that day’s events, I also snuck off to chat with Naoki Yoshida.
We spoke about a few topics during the Media Tour preview, through a translator. Though my time was brief, it was a fascinating chat with Yoshi-P about a few topics in Final Fantasy 14. Namely, we discussed the introduction of the new combo buttons, potential glamour weapons for Viper and Pictomancer, and whether other MMOs like World of Warcraft affected the launch date of Dawntrail.
Yoshi-P discusses Final Fantasy 14's combo buttons, glamour, and release dates of other video games
Q. One of the big changes for me, as an older fan of MMOs, is the update to combos in combat classes - where you can hit one or two buttons to get your combos going. Now, while I’m excited for this, are there any downsides for players using combos that way in Final Fantasy 14 - less DPS, or something? Is there an incentive to hit the buttons manually, instead of one for a combo?
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Yoshi-P: This action replacing the same spot on your hotbar was first implemented in the 6.XX patch series. The development team felt this would be a QoL update for people who might want to continue, or not have to use up too much of their hotbar. But at the same time, yes, there were some downsides to it. There were some players that were complaining about, ‘Well, we’re only mashing buttons and so we can accidentally hit the next button in the combo when we didn’t want to.’
So, in 7.0, we will be implementing a system where you can choose for the slot to not automatically replace with the next move in the combo. So, the feedback was there were players that asked for the automatic replacement of the skill to be removed. With that feedback, the development went in to make it optional in 7.0. You can select the skills that may automatically update in the hotbar to not do that. But in terms of less DPS and damage dealt, if you’re simply inputting the skill combo as it automatically replaces, it shouldn’t have any impact on it.
It’s just when you accidentally hit the button when you didn’t want to, is when the problem was happening to some players. So that’s why we made it so players can choose whether the icon is replaced automatically or not.
Additionally, in terms of player feedback, we received comments about how certain skill actions might - pressing one skill and then the next skill available will allow for more damage dealt. And some players were asking for those to be kind of like, combined into an automatic replacement on the button, but we have not addressed that yet.
Q. So, this summer is incredibly busy for video games. I mean, we’ve got Shadow of the Erdtree coming, but on the MMO front, it’s also very busy. We have World of Warcraft: The War Within right around the same time frame, as an example. And, as we know, you’re a fan of World of Warcraft - did that impact any of the decisions for the release date for Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, so that maybe fans this summer can enjoy both?
Yoshi-P: For sure, there are a lot of gamers within the development team. Yoshida himself is also an online gamer as well. So when we heard the announcement of Elden Ring’s new DLC coming out, we did discuss it. Yeah, it wouldn’t be optimal for the players for sure. And so yeah, we did make not an accommodation, but an adjustment based on that announcement only because they let their information out prior to what we were going to do.
But I mean, it was just a matter of like a week or two. That said, with World of Warcraft, I don’t think they made any announcements just yet. So I mean, we kind of took a leap of faith, hoping that Blizzard will sense that, ‘Okay, we’re going out with our announcement first’, and perhaps I’m hoping that they will make adjustments on their end.
That said, of course, we are a game company, a game studio for sure, but we’re also gamers, and so I’m sure FromSoftware had their considerations. Blizzard had their considerations. I’m sure their employees want to play these different games too and we want our games to be played by people.
I think we all have a similar sentiment. And so I think there may be some kind of like, not sensing of each other’s needs, but I think there might be some sort of movement of how can we spread apart.
But that’s it with Final Fantasy 14. Of course, we do a lot of promotion around expansion releases, but that said, our game design is built so that anybody can start at any time. If you decide to take a break, you could come back at any time.
And of course, with marketing and PR, we do need to create marketing beats so that we are kind of gaining momentum. But I think it just boils down to the players kind of playing at their own pace, making sure that you are going at a pace that you are comfortable with, and in the end, that will also benefit the team.
Q. So let’s be honest - the real endgame of Final Fantasy 14 is Glamour. With the Viper and Pictomancer coming to Final Fantasy 14, I wanted to ask - will they be able to farm relic weapons and trial weapons from the previous expansions?
Yoshi-P: We’re not 100% sure off the top of our head, but I think at least one prior, in the 6.XX series, we’re pretty sure that we included weapons for those new jobs. But beyond that, there is content that does include weapons for the new jobs. But we also don’t want a rush of people to farm for tokens ahead of time. So I’m afraid we’re not able to disclose them.
And with the graphical updates, we have made it so, not just Glamour, but Gpose, the screenshots you can take will definitely be of a very high quality now. We would love for players to post their screenshots on social channels. I’m sure people will look at that and take notice of Final Fantasy 14 as well.
Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail releases on July 2, 2024, with early access beginning on March 26, 2024. You can find more coverage of the Media Tour at Sportskeeda, such as our Pictomancer preview.
